Charlotte MacLeod's The Luck Runs Out (and a bonus mini-review of Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda)

My Dear Reader,

If you have yet to read the first of Charlotte MacLeod's Peter Shandy series, Rest You Merry, go do so. While I have no doubt that this would still be enjoyable without that, it will be so much more so if you already know the folks you're about to spend time with.

If Charlotte MacLeod was still alive I would be taking to her social media praising and cursing her all in the same breath. She wrote books that make me miss sleep because I can't stop reading! When I went to take my pre-work nap tonight I looked and saw that I was about 69% through. By the time I allowed my eyes to close I was finished.

Once again, the tale takes place at Balaclava Agricultural College. Peter Shandy and his new wife, Helen, are enjoying life as newlyweds and Helen is enjoying getting to know her new community better by hosting regular dinner parties. Professor Ames is back from Rest You Merry and has a new housekeeper that no one enjoys the company of. She's even bossier and uppity than his late wife, Jemima! After one particularly dreadful dinner party Helen announces that she's invited her landlady from South Dakota to stay for an open-ended visit -- with her and Peter both thinking that she would be just what Professor Ames needs.

SO there's romance.
There's murder.
There's thievery.
There's pignapping.
There's the biggest agricultural competition coming up that has everyone already in a tizzy.
There's superstition.

There's Peter and his counting.

And his snark.

There's Helen and her knowledge of old books.

And her adorableness.

There's Thorkjeld Svenson.

And his Viking-esque Presidential awesomeness.

This time we even get to know his family better. I love his wife as much as I love him. Her youngest daughters were contemplating how she can stand him with his Viking madness at one point as he was about to go and rally the troops. In reply, he made some dramatic Valantino-esque moves on his wife with a quote ... and stated that he couldn't recall the rest of it.

Now I want a herring to put in my window for my Viking .... just in case.

Part of me wants so badly to just marathon the series like I would if it was Netflix. I can't bring myself to, though, because once they're done that's it. No more Shandy. I'm already having separation anxiety over the idea.

In the meantime, though, here's my next read (sneaking it in even though it's not on The Thing):

The Amazon Link:

(right now it's FREE for Kindle!)

And the GoodReads blurb:

It's a freaking Choose Your Own Adventure chick lit!!!!

AND only a few hours later my first chosen "adventure" is done!

I LOVED the Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was growing up so when I saw a grown-up chick-lit-ish offering? I jumped at it. (Didn't hurt that it was free on Amazon at the time.)

Okay, so I chose my path and read it through and didn't end up entirely surprised because I chose the path that I would have chosen back in my single days and it ended pretty much exactly how it ended. And now I want to wallow in a pint (or four) of ice cream. 

Exactly how I used to.

All that being said, I freaking love this book.

I'm half tempted to go back in immediately and try again .... but I'm going to give the book "me" a chance to breathe and I'll revisit it again after a couple of other books.

Well done, Tara Lee Reed.

You owe me a pint of ice cream, though.

Reading With John - Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Welcome to a brand new feature here -- 

Reading With John (The Well-Read Pirate Prince)!

For those unaware, John is my 8 1/2 year old 3rd grade son. He loves to read and when I started this blog he started talking about doing his own reviews, as well. Today is his first based on the book we read together over his holiday break and finished on Friday -- Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

In order to make the review more fun for him (at least to start out), I came up with a little form that he filled out:

And here's what he had to say:

Title: Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Author: Jeff Kinney

Illustrator: Jeff Kinney

What type of book is it? (funny? scary? serious?) funny

Who is the main character? Greg Heffley

Who are the secondary characters? his family, his friend, his classmates and teachers

Where is the setting? school and home

What happened in the story? The whole school year in middle school, the Cheese Touch, getting chased on Halloween. It was his diary of everything.

Did you learn anything? Middle school is hard, and friends make it better. 

Did you like it? Why? Yes, because it was funny and told me about middle school.

Jonathan Auxier's Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

A well-written book is a well-written book regardless of who it's written for. It is exactly this reason why I have so many "middle-grade" books on my "Want-To-Read" shelf on GoodReads ... and exactly this reason why I chose Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes as my first official read of 2015 (and the "A" for my A to Z challenge).

Like an awful lot of books, lately, I first heard about Peter Nimble thanks to a GoodReads recommendation. They seem to know me well.

Peter Nimble is a ten-year old blind orphan who was raised horribly by a despicable man with a rotten temper and a rotten dog in a port town .... somewhere. Peter was raised to be a thief and has an incredible talent for it. Because of his blindness, all of his other senses work remarkably well and he can hear and smell like no one else.

One night he is out picking pockets in a crowd otherwise preoccupied with a man selling "magical" hats. Peter can smell riches. When he comes close to the man's wagon he smells something that he can't resist. Even though the wagon is covered in a variety of locks, once Peter is left alone with the wagon he is able to break in (I told you -- he has an incredible talent for thievery). He finds the smell coming from a small box which he takes off with and then the fun truly begins.

I really don't want to say too much about what the "fun" entails, but here's a brief tease:

• near-death experiences
• magical islands
• vanishing kingdoms
• more thieves
• more orphans
• talking birds, fish, apes, beetles, and this:

There's magic and science and science disguised as magic and goodness and evil and laughs and tears. 

It's a lengthy book (the paperback has 400 pages according to Amazon), but a pretty fast read since once I started I did very little else. I just HAD to know what was going to happen next! It's like Dickens heads to Narnia by passing through the Phantom Tollbooth and stops by A Swiftly Tilting Planet on the way.

You can read the first chapter at the book's website but you may want to hold off and just get the book. You might not want to stop after the first chapter is done. I have the ebook right now but have every intention of buying the physical book-book soon. In a year or so I fully expect that John will be reading it. Even though he's okay with ebooks, some books you just have to own "for real."

*************************************************************************

UP NEXT:

Amazon Link:

from GoodReads:

New To You 2015 Reading Challenge

Huge thanks to Cynthia over at Bingeing on Books for pointing out this latest challenge. She posted about it and I went "oooooh shiny!" and am signing up, too! It's the New To You 2015 Reading Challenge from Herding Cats & Burning Soup and the basic goal is to set a number of, you guessed it, new to you whatevers to read for the year.

According the sign-up page (which you can get to by clicking the challenge name OR the image above), this "new to you" can be:


This can be a debut author.
A brand new to you author.
And old favorites "debut" book.
A new series.
A first time reading a new genre (ex if you read your first New Adult book)
or any other new that crosses your path

I went through The Reading Thing and figured out where I stand right now as is and I've got 30 books lined up that would fit either new-to-me author (30), old favorites debut book (2), or new-to-me series (11). Most of the series are also new-to-me authors but if I have a plan to continue the series, I'm counting it as a series.

The 30 puts me half way between level three (24 books) and level four (36 books). Hrmph. I want to be a level four but it's already going to be tough (I think) reading everything I have planned now without trying to add in 6 new books. Ooooooh but I want to try!

Carola Dunn's Death at Wentwater Court

I can now officially declare 2014 to be over! My last book of the year is finished as of 5:10am ET!!!

The Honourable Miss Daisy Dalrymple is the daughter of a viscount in 1923 England. (A viscount is one step above a baron and one step below an earl, in case you didn't know.) Her father died from influenza. Her fiance and brother both died in the war. Her cousin inherited the title and estate and now lives there with Daisy's mother. And without Daisy herself. Daisy lives with her friend, Lucy, and has just landed a gig as a freelance writer for Town & Country magazine. Her assignment is to profile the great estates that, given her nobility, she's likely to be able to gain access to more easily than a simple commoner.

Her first assignment is at Wentwater Court. It's home to the Earl of Wentwater and his young second wife, and also in attendance are his three grown children, his sister, her husband, his son's fiancee, her brother (who has been unsuccessfully pursuing Daisy for years), and the sketchy slimey object of the Earl's daughter's affections who more or less invited himself. (Got all that?)

Surprise, surprise! The slimeball ends up dead and almost everybody has opportunity and motive at first glance.

Enter the oh-so-dashing Scotland Yard Chief Detective Inspector Alec Fletcher and his crew who happened to be in the area investigating another crime when strings were pulled and favors were called in to have it all handled discretely without the local yokels involved. (Of course, "local yokels" wasn't the term used but I think you get the idea.)

I was a little concerned at first that this would be "too similar too soon" since it's set only ten years prior to Rhys Bowen's Her Royal Spyness which I had just finished. Daisy and Lady Georgie are on two opposite ends of the spectrum, though. Where Lady Georgie struggles to do more than boil an egg and open a can of beans, Daisy is accomplished and confident ... and has better taste in men.

All in all it was a delightful fast read (and now I'm able to start The Reading Thing 2015 right on schedule). In the end both crimes are solved with Daisy's help interference involvement and I'm left looking forward to the next book in the series. In fact, the next book is already scheduled to be read .... hmmmm .... 26 books from now?!?!?

Up next:
My "A" for the Authors A to Z Reading Challenge:


GoodReads Blurb:

Yes, it's supposedly geared for ages 10+.
Of course, so are Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.
It's also 400 pages long so it may take me a few days.